The Great Mall of China

"The Great Wall of China" is a misnomer. "If there is any question whether China is a communist country, just go to the Great Wall and the Chinese people will inform you otherwise. They will not tell you. They will show you. You cannot walk two feet without an aggressive Chinaman holding some product in your face saying "Haro, you buy, cheap!" That is why I think "The Great Mall of China" is a more appropriate name. The great irony is that some of the most frequently purveyed items are Mao's Little Red Books, Communist caps or t-shirts emblazened with Mao's face. The road leading up to the Wall is lined on both sides with booths and shops selling all things Chinese.

It's not so bad once you get onto the wall. Based on an observation of would-be sellers of goods scattering when the police/security came near, I don't think they are supposed to sell stuff on the actual wall. One of the girl's in our group would much rather have been accosted by an aggressive Chinese peddler than how she actually was accosted.

First, a little background. The Great Wall of China is to the Chinese what Mt. Rushmore or the Grand Canyon is to Americans. China has almost exactly as much land as the United States. People come from all over China to visit this monument to China's past. Many of them live in very rural villages where they have seen foreigners on TV but never in person. Throughout our trip, it was not uncommon for people to come up and say "We take picture together, Ok?" They would snap a shot and then be gone. Another factor that helps you understand what happened to the poor girl on the Great Wall of China is that the Chinese have little, if any, candor. They say just what they think. It is like that filter in our brains that keeps thoughts in our heads from going to our mouths is missing in them. More than once, living in Taiwan, I went to the beach to get a nice golden tan, only to come back to have both friends and strangers say "Ewww, you're so black." (On an unrelated sidenote; The Chinese people think that white skin is beautiful. That is why when you see Chinese tourists at Zion's or the Grand Canyon, they will have big floppy hats, sunglasses and umbrellas when there is not a cloud in the sky.) One of the girl's on our trip who did happen to be on the heavier side was told in a very matter of fact way, "You are kind of fat aren't you?" Last, the Chinese concept of personal space is not the same as ours. With about five times as many people living in the same space as the U.S., you can imagine how people are going to bump, nudge, jam and cram into each other.

So, with this background information, I can now continue my story. A girl and her friend were walking along the Great Wall of China minding their own business when, out of the blue, a woman comes up and grabs her boobs. This was not just a little pat or touch. The Chinese woman got two full handfulls. Now, as you might already have guessed, this girl was well endowed in that area. As the Chinese woman grabbed her, she said "Wow, that very big!" Most Chinese women are not so blessed and so, being from a rural part of China and not having the opportunity to see American's, let alone big chested one's, thought she would take full advantage of the opportunity to get an up close look (and feel). The American girl, was completely taken off guard. She said later that she didn't really realize what was happening to her. So, she just stood there in shock with a dumbstruck expression on her face. The Chinese woman's next comment revealed what she thought was the reason for such largess. She patted the American girl's stomach, looked up at her and said "you have baby?" The girl's friend finally came to her rescue. She pulled her away and wisked her away.

I heard everything you said

This is another funny little story that happened on my 2002 trip to China. The last leg of our trip took us to Beijing. I got in the elevator with a couple of students to go to the lobby. There were was a twenty something looking Chinese couple already in the elevator when we entered. They didn't say or do anything too indiscreet but I noticed them start to look over at us and saying things in Chinese. I couldn't hear everything but I picked up words that let me know they were talking about us. When we got to the bottom, just before the doors opened I said "Wo ting dao ni swo da hua chwen bu." Translation: "I heard everything you said." When I said that, their eyes widened and their jaws dropped in utter surprise and shock. They rushed out of the elevator as fast as they could, never to be seen or heard of again. At least not by us.

Language Man

This is an extension of the Professional Liar post. For the background that goes with this story please read that one first.

So on our way back to the bus stop we had to pass by "wildcat" vendors who didn't want to pay for a booth. They just put blankets down on the ground to display their goods. I'm not sure if you have heard but China is a crowded place. Needless to say, we were not the only people walking down the sidewalk so it is hard to know for sure what really happened next. What I know for sure is that I heard a hulabaloo behind me. I looked to see the smallest kid in our group being accosted by an angry Chinese woman. If I didn't know better, I would have thought it was the same one that Makena had scammed a few minutes earlier. If text messaging existed back then, it would make sense that she had texted a message to this woman to get revenge.
At any rate, this woman was standing there in Nick's face yelling at him. I'm not sure if you have heard but Chinese people are short. So the fact that this woman was face to face with Nick tells you how short he was. I made my way back past my students and a host of other curious Chinese people to see what she was so upset over.
On a short biographical side note, after graduation from BYU in 1992 I lived in Taiwan for two years. One of my reasons for going there was to learn Chinese. I had become what would be considered fluent but in ten years with no chance to practice my Chinese had become rusty. While some of the vendors could speak English, this angry woman could not. She was yelling "Ni kwai dao la" as she held up a broken hair comb. "Ni gei wo chen" Translation: "You broke it, give me money!" I was not so sure Nick broke it but I had my doubts. In my best Chinese I said,
"He didn't break it you are just trying to cheat him." She insisted that he had stepped on the comb and that he had to pay for it. We went back and forth for what seemed like a while but was probably less than a minute. The debate did not, however, include how much she expected to get for it; probably less than a buck. Pride, however, is rarely laden with logic. The discussion centered on whether Nick had broken the comb and I was defending Nick's honor. A crowd was beginning to assemble and I was getting nervous. At last, I said "no, we are not going to pay you and I nudged Nick to move on and gave a look to the others that they should move out. With that, the woman, afraid that she was going to end up empty handed, attempted to get something of value and grabbed the bag of goods that Nick had purchased. In so doing, the plastic bag broke and a jade statue fell to the ground and broke. Now I had cause to be upset. I'm sure the statue was worth more than the stupid comb. The crowing crowd and the woman's rash action, resulted in panic that forced pride from me. Now logic took over and I saw a vision of an angry mob busting out their kung fu. That wouldn't have gone over well with the parents that had entrusted this kids into my care. I reached into my pocket. I threw her the first bill that emerged and took off for the bus. I am sure it was more than the comb was worth. Even if it was a scam. If I would have calmly asked her how much she wanted and then offered her half of that we might have come to terms. Even if I would have paid her what she asked I would have come away with more money in my pocket. My ego allowed things to get out of hand and I ended up rewarding her bad behavior. Even if her story was legit, I taught her how to exploit dumb, prideful Americans. The funny part of the story and the reason for the title of this piece is that when we finally made it to the safety of the bus and started to relax. Makena, who didn't understand any of what had just taken place, looked at me in amazement and with a sense of awe in his voice and expression said " Mr. Jeppson, your....your like language man!" Apparently he had not heard me speaking Chinese. The longer I had been there, the more it improved. To him though it was all just jibberish. Even if I was slaughtering the language, to him my language skills had saved them from the impending doom of a Chinese mob.

Professional Liar

Back in the year 2002, I took 27 students from Wasatch Mountain Junior High to China. Such a choice could bring into question my sanity but that is another topic for another day. We spent a lot of time visiting temples, gardens and learning about accupuncture, tai chi, martial arts and Chinese food. The thing they really wanted to do though was shop. After all, we were in China! The problem was that our trip was already scheduled to the hilt. One night, however, we had a couple hours of free time. The kids begged me to take them to the market. This was a scary prospect. I was supposed to take them on a bus, across the city of Nanjing and back to our hotel. What if a kid got lost? In a major U.S. city that would be one thing but half a world away in China?
Well, we got to the market without any trouble. The kids spent a couple of hours going around to the different booths in the open air market where they bought things like knives, mah jang boards, jade statues and, of course, clothes. I bought all of my kids jade necklaces with the animal of their Chinese zodiac carved on it. We all knew that whatever price they were quoted was grossly inflated. Part of the fun was to haggle to see what kind of price they could get. The Chinese knew, however, that the Americans were flush with cash. Furthermore, these were fourteen year old kids and should be easy to exploit. Makena Walsh was a particularly savy and courageous youth. He was haggling with a vendor over some item and the vendor had reached her bottom line. Or what he wanted Makena to think his bottom line was. But Makena was not going to be had so easily. He had a few tricks in his proverbial bag. He was determined to get the best possible price. After naming a rock bottom price that the vendor refused. Makena exclaimed "That is all the money I have."
The Chinese woman said "No, you have money, I know!" Makena, with a strait face, said
"That is all I have" and started to walk away.
In a frustrated but desperate tone the Chinese woman said, "Ok, ok I sell!"Makena stopped, turned around and went back to the booth. His mistake was that when he took out his money, the woman was able to see that he actually did have more than the named price. The woman's expression grew sour and she said angrily "You, professional liar!" I guess she could still have refused to sell to him but the price was set, so Makena got the deal. I do believe in karma and a few minutes later his chicanery would come back on all of us.

life lessons

Every year several students tell me that I should write a book that includes the "mostly true" stories that I tell them about the lessons that I have learned from life. Every year a number of new students say it but has it happened yet? No! This might be a way for me to ease into it while hopefully getting both solicited and unsolicited feedback. While some have a moral, some are immoral. Some are practical (like my musings on how to defeat the law of diminishing returns by drinking Coca-Cola) and some might be seen as idiosyncratic (like my wishes regarding the disposal of my dead body). Some are short and some are long. Whatever the case, I hope that what I write will be both entertaining and maybe even helpful.

So lets, begin with a short one: Cute Is in the Eye of the Beholder

One night sitting at the dinner table we were speculating over which child looked most like which parent. Since it is often hard for members of the same family to see resemblances we began talking about what other people said. A lot of people thought that my eldest daughter Alexandra looked like her mother. I had people tell me that they thought Jessika looked like me. Now to truly understand Jessika's reply, you have to have a little background information. Jessika was about three years old at the time. She had curly hair like little orphan Annie only hers was blonde. She had chubby cheeks with a dimple on her left cheek and a cleft in her chin. She was like a little cabbage patch doll. You can imagine then that total strangers would come up to her and fall all over themselves pointing out how cute she was. She was constantly hearing people say "cute, cute, cute, you are soooo cute." So when I say that she looks like me, the wheels in her little brain started to turn. She wrinkled her brow and turned down the corners of her mouth in a puzzled expression as she studied my face. Then, though it was a statement, it was said like a question she said "but daddy, you're not cute."
I wasn't offended then but I think I am now. I know I'm not cute but the only characteristic that I thought that she and I had in common was the cleft in our respective chins. But maybe when people said that she looked like me they were really saying the I was chubby!

I hadn't planned on sharing this one but as I was writing about cuteness it came to mind.

At the age of nineteen, I served a two year mission to Japan for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For a number of reasons, missionaries go out into the cold cruel world in pairs. The older of the two is responsible for training the younger, green missionary who, depending on how fresh of the boat he is, has to rely heavily on the senior companion for help in communication. For the experience that I am about to write about, I had been in Japan for about a month so you can immagine that may linguistic abilities needed work. Still, I was fiercely independent and hated to rely on my senior companion. In this case, I was trying to talk to a Japanese lady holding a baby at her front door. I said "Kodoma wa kowai desu ne." As polite as the Japanese are, her initial expression showed horror and then revulsion. My companion immediately stepped in to smooth things over. As we turned away from the door, I could see he was trying his best to hold back the laughter. I asked him what I had said. He explained that while I used the adjective Kowai, I should have said Kawai. Kawai means cute. Kowai means scary. So instead of saying what a cute baby, I said " Your baby is really scary!"